john.mck...@healthmarkets.com (McKown, John) writes: > Well, in a sense it is dying. The installed capacity is going up, but > it appears that the number of companies actually using it is > declining. In the past, IBM went after the "small business" with the > 135 or 4341. There is no longer a machine which is cost effective for > that demographic, mainly due to software costs. If I had a 10 person > company, I'd be a Linux/Intel user. I would not even consider Linux on > a small z due to the other hardware costs. I.e. a DASD array is much > more expensive than a small NAS box or even AOE arrays. If I were > somewhat bigger and needed better performance and reliability, then a > pSeries running Linux or perhaps even an iSeries would be more > affordable. And the iSeries is very impressive!
43xx (and vax) saw big explosion in the entry & mid-range starting 1979 ... large number ... bascially distributed/departmental servers ... some large companies ordered them in hundreds at a time. some old email discussing that 43xx period: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#4341 recent reference to STL as example ... which in the early 80s they were installing them on every floor in every tower ... basically in the departmental "stock" room or in conference room. http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#15 Mainframe Hall of Fame: Three New Members Added another example is this old reference http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#15 departmental servers to customer initially looking at getting 20 4341s ... but order grew to 210 4341s (over six month period): http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#email790404b 43xx competed against vax in the entry and midrange market for customers buying single or few number of machines (compareable number of sales) ... but 43xx were also sold in quantities to large customers ordering multiple hundred at a time. this is vax sales sliced & diced by year, model, US & non-US ... and it is easy to see that by mid-80s, that market was moving to workstations & large PCs. http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0 Computers in Science Fiction followon 4361/4381 anticipated to see equally large explosion in orders ... but by that time ... workstations & PCs were starting to move up the value chain and take over the entry & mid-range market segment (similar fate as what happened to vax). -- 40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
